Richard III Kevin Spacey and Annabel Scholey in Sam Mendes's staging at Harvey Theater, Brooklyn Academy of Music.Credit
Sara Krulwich/The New York Times

Oh, Mr. Romney, have you met Richard, Duke of Gloucester? A front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination might benefit from a sit-down with the title character of “Richard III,” or the version of him that is being embodied with all-conquering audacity by Kevin Spacey at the Brooklyn Academy of Music.

In Shakespeare’s grisly portrait of the hunchback who would be king, which opened Wednesday night in a production from the trans-Atlantic Bridge Project, Richard buzz-saws his way through a crowded field of contenders to claim the crown of England. Now Mr. Romney might find some of Richard’s stratagems déjà vu (like having other people besmirch your rivals’ reputations) or unfeasible in these, uh, civilized times (like hiring assassins to dispatch competitors).

But he should definitely make a close study of at least one aspect of Mr. Spacey’s star turn as Shakespeare’s “poisonous bunch-backed toad.” (Now there’s a great bit of mud-slinging for you.) For this Richard the cardinal rule of how to succeed in politics is clear: You have to out-act everybody else. If Mr. Romney devotes half the flair and energy to this proposition that Mr. Spacey does, you can start playing “Hail to the Chief.”

In a happy convergence of an actor and a role Mr. Spacey makes acting up a devastating storm both the form and content of his part in “Richard III,” which has been staged (none too subtly) by the Oscar-winning director Sam Mendes. It’s the season to be cynical about all things political. (Not for nothing is the drop curtain at the Harvey Theater emblazoned with the word “NOW.”) And Mr. Spacey and Mr. Mendes add their voices to the din of derision by presenting a Richard who drips with tasty, venomous contempt for the process of becoming head of state.

This Richard may be a blood-spattered psycho, a type Mr. Spacey knows well, having given us the memorably murderous screen villains of “The Usual Suspects” and “Seven.” But like those homicidal charmers his Duke of Gloucester is also so intelligent that the world is a crashing bore for him unless he stirs up trouble. And he’s smart enough to see through the bald-faced hypocrisies of his fellow connivers.

Much of the fun in watching Mr. Spacey in this production — which also features Haydn Gwynne as the one character, and performer, who can stand up to him — comes from seeing how far he’s willing to push Richard’s dissembling ways, as he makes nice with (and even makes love to) people of use to him. It’s as if he’s testing how outlandish he can be in feigning piety, patriotism, familial solicitude and courtly love before his onstage audience of dupes catches on.

That people seldom do catch on at first only confirms his belief that he’s the smartest guy in the room — a notion that affords him both great glee and, more surprising, great pain. More even than usual you feel that Richard’s humpback (which Mr. Spacey wears like a label flaunter in the latest Prada) has blessed him with an outsider’s perspective, steeped in an acuteness that scalds.

After successfully wooing the newly widowed Lady Anne (Annabel Scholey), who well knows Richard has just slain her husband, Mr. Spacey roars out his triumph as much in disgust as delight. “Was ever woman in this humor wooed?” — Richard’s question to the audience — becomes in this version a withering indictment of human frailty, a darker, more fatalistic echo of Puck’s “Lord, what fools these mortals be.”

Richard’s relationship with his pigeons could be said to be paralleled by Mr. Spacey’s with his audience. Just how much spicy ham are we willing to digest? This “Richard III” is basically an occasion for a star to practice the fine old art of going over the top in a style that combines high artistry with the primal urge to show off.

Photo

Kevin Spacey's Richard III is propelled by force of will.Credit
Sara Krulwich/The New York Times

Mr. Spacey — the artistic director at the Old Vic theater in London, where this production originated — dares to evoke the barnstorming actor-managers of a century ago. And though I’m just as happy that this tradition has died out, it’s a hoot to watch someone of Mr. Spacey’s skill revive it with such blazing brazenness and force of will.

Say what you will about his performance, it is consistent in its excesses, shaped by a sustained point of view. I can’t say the same of this production, which is the final offering from Mr. Mendes’s three-year-old Bridge Project, which mixes British and American actors.

Designed by Tom Piper (scenery), Catherine Zuber (costumes) and Paul Pyant (lighting), this “Richard” takes place in a chic, 1930s-flavored twilight, as did Richard Eyre’s 1990 production for the National Theater, starring Ian McKellen. (A scene here in which a conference table is turned into a barricade is borrowed directly from Mr. Eyre’s version.) But the show’s visual gimmicks, quotations and steals come from postmodern Shakespeare productions of the past several decades, and they are slapped on like flashy decals on a motorbike.

An error has occurred. Please try again later.

You are already subscribed to this email.

There is both scratchy black-and-white newsreel footage and living-color video simulcasts (of which Mr. Spacey, admittedly, makes amusing use); photo-op hand-shaking moments; scene-announcing projected titles; a drum-beating chorus of ghosts; a banquet of the dead; and an omniscient avenging angel in the form of the mad, old Queen Margaret (Gemma Jones), who here stalks the stage throughout, marking X’s on the multi-doored set as characters die off.

Some devices generate immediate theatrical impact, but they don’t cohere into an interpretive pattern. Just as Mr. Spacey’s Richard is eternally restless, afraid he’ll lose his grip on the reins of power, so Mr. Mendes seems afraid of losing the audience’s attention. Given the lackluster supporting cast, this is not a misplaced fear.

Chuk Iwuji is fine as a media-savvy Duke of Buckingham in the play’s first half (though he fades into anonymity in the second), and Maureen Anderman is child-warpingly glacial as Richard’s mother, the Duchess of York. But basically the ensemble is only scenery for Mr. Spacey to gnaw upon.

The exception is Ms. Gwynne (a Tony nominee for “Billy Elliot”), whose Queen Elizabeth (Richard’s sister-in-law) resembles the severely soignée Wallis Simpson and is a similarly canny operator. In the great climactic showdown between Richard and Elizabeth, in which he tries to persuade her to give him her daughter in marriage, Ms. Haydn and her character hold their own against the raging onslaught that is Mr. Spacey.

As Elizabeth parries Richard’s pleas and commands with a wit of steel, Mr. Spacey’s performance reaches new heights of feverishness, which is saying something. You get the feeling that he’s got to wear this woman down, somehow, some way. That the battle ends in a draw is a tribute to Ms. Gwynne’s immense stamina, talent and technique.

Trust Mr. Spacey to have the last word, though. This production has arranged it (in ways that I won’t disclose) so that even Richard’s stone-cold corpse is a scene stealer that makes you forget anybody else is onstage.

A version of this review appears in print on January 19, 2012, on Page C1 of the New York edition with the headline: It’s a Dehumanizing Business, Becoming Top Dog. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe